Long-lasting depression of soleus motoneurons excitability following repetitive magnetic stimuli of the spinal cord in multiple sclerosis patients.

The effect of repetitive magnetic stimulation at the spinal level on the soleus H-reflex amplitude was evaluated in II MS patients with lower limb spasticity and in nine healthy subjects. In MS patients stimulation with a train of 16 stimuli at 25 Hz induced a decrease in amplitude to 61.2 +/- 25.7% of the unconditioned H-reflex amplitude at interstimulus interval (ISI) of 10-1000 ms (P < 0.01). The amount of decrease in H-reflex amplitude was highly dependent on the stimulation intensity and the placement of the coil, and to a lesser extent influenced by the stimulation frequency. No decrease in motor evoked potentials (MEPs) evoked by transcranial magnetic stimulation was seen following trains of 16 stimuli at mid-thoracic in contrast to the post-stimulation depression in H-reflex amplitude which could imply that mechanisms acting at presynaptic level were involved. In response to repetitive magnetic stimuli for 5 min, a long-lasting decrease in H-reflex amplitude to a level of about 70% of the pre-stimulation H-reflex amplitude occurred in MS patients (P < 0.01). A similar although not significant decrease was observed in healthy subjects. We propose that long-lasting depression of the soleus H-reflex amplitude after repetitive magnetic stimuli is due to long-term depression of the synaptic transmission.